What is a Fellow?

What is a Fellow?

A Fellow is a Social Entrepreneur that has the same qualities/temperament/spirit as a business entrepreneur: vision, creativity, determination and risk-taking. But a social entrepreneur applies these qualities to solving social problems on a national scale, rather than make a profit.

Social Entrepeneur Example

Francesco Piazzesi

Échale a tu casa!

México, North America

"Drawing upon years of experience in the housing in the housing industry, Francesco Piazzesi Tommasi is adressing the lack of decent housing for mexicans at the bottom of the pyramid through Échale a tu casa! This auto-construction model is focused on community- based financing and construction of safe, ecologically friendly. and adequate homes, in order to offer both dignity and (re-sale) value to low-income homeowners."

Types of Fellows

Ashoka elects different types of Fellows at different stages, they are:

Ashoka Fellows, elected at the launch stage, are leading social entrepreneurs who have innovative structural solutions to social problems and the potential to change patterns across society.

Senior Fellows are advanced entrepreneurs who are well beyond the launch stage and, at the time of election, have already created widespread impact and are recognized as leaders in their fields.

Members are public entrepreneurs who have already made a scratch on history - a significant, widespread transformation of the patterns of their fields - and are well established in the mature phase of their work. The entrepreneur’s impact is already incorporated in daily life.

Academy Members form The Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship. Their solutions have had scalable, global impact and they are architects of their fields, the emergent competitive citizen sector, social entrepreneurship and the “everyone a changemaker” movement.